


two ghosts

by killaidanturner



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Guilt, M/M, Pining, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 23:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11001390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killaidanturner/pseuds/killaidanturner
Summary: Steve has unsent text messages to Tony sitting in his phone.





	two ghosts

 

 

Steve knows that he will never be forgiven, because of that he can’t seem to let go. He supposes that’s the real reason why he sent Tony the phone, it’s still a way to hold on, that perhaps one day a voice will be on the other end and each exhale will sound like forgiveness. 

 

It’s selfish but he can’t seem to stop himself from wanting it, from still having Tony in his life. 

 

“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done,” he says to himself, he says with his hands on his knees and his eyes to the sky in empty prayer. It’s partially that he’s become something he never wanted to be, something a little selfish, a little darker, and in the process he’s lost Bucky and Tony. In the process he’s lost himself. 

 

“I do not know if there is a world that exists where you can have the both of them.” T’Challa has been patient and kind and far more than what Steve deserves.

 

“I’m starting to realize that.”

 

“Are you now? Because I believe sending a cell phone off to Mr.Stark-”

 

“I know, I know.” Steve can’t hear Tony’s name without his hands curling up, without his body wanting to reach out and touch something, anything. 

 

“But even you are human by nature.” 

 

Steve’s eyes are oceans as he looks at T’Challa but only Steve is drowning. 

 

* * *

It was stupid, and Steve knew it was stupid but that didn’t stop him from doing it. Lying to Tony about Bucky was like watching a car crash, waiting for the collision to happen and knowing that he could do nothing about it. 

 

“Why?” He imagines Tony asking him, a conversation he imagines more and more these days, a way of being able to get out the things building up inside of him. 

 

“Because you and him, you were my two worlds and I couldn’t stop the path that you both were on and I was trying, God I was trying Tony, trying to keep you both safe.” 

 

It doesn’t matter though, none of that matters when it was all built on a lie. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ I’ve programmed my new number in that phone, one that you will always be able to reach me at and even then I knew that you would never contact me. You were always the stronger one between us.  _ **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

__

_ I’ve thought about the space where your arc reactor used to be and how you once told me after it was gone that it felt like you were missing your heart. I don’t think that I was meant to hear it, I don’t even think you realized that you said it. I worry about that now, after what I did. I worry about the space there and I just wish that you were untouched, unhurt.  _ **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

 

It’s easier when Sam is around, when they’re on the run together. The sun sets differently when Sam is with him, colors are just a little bit more vivid but everything still feels off. 

 

“I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

 

“We’re brothers.”

 

And when he’s with Sam it’s almost like war all over again, but the parts that he doesn’t mind remembering. Sam reminds him of the Howling Commandos and a welcome party he never got and Steve thinks that's the real reason he’s grateful. 

 

* * *

 

_ I’m afraid that I’ll always be this way, that I’ll always push and want more.  _ **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

__

_ When I think about what I did, keeping such a large thing from you, I feel young again, and for me that was never anything good. It makes my lungs feel weak, like they’re working too hard against my ribs, and my limbs feel too heavy to move. I feel like the nights are never ending and I never thought it was possible to feel like the serum had left my body but it is, it is.  _ **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

__

“I’m worried about you.” Sam is all he has left so he makes sure that he listens when Sam speaks, that he takes his words for every syllable. 

 

“I miss him.” 

 

“I know what that feels like.” 

 

“I don’t think this is something that talking about can fix, I don’t think any group or any amount of time can make this feel better.” 

 

* * *

Missing Tony is like waves crashing back into the shore because even they miss how they break against the sand. It comes to him in brutal rock cracking waves and he lets them keep crashing. 

 

* * *

“You know, I may understand why you did it, but does he?” This night is like all of their others, in an apartment with minimal essentials, ready to move at any moment. 

 

“No. I think about figuring out a way to explain it but every way just makes me sound selfish and it makes me feel even more awful than I already do.”

 

“Why does it make you feel selfish? Have you ever thought about that aspect of it?”

 

“Because I love him, I did it because I guess I thought one day he would love me too. I don’t know, God Sam, I sound like an idiot and I’ve ruined everything for all of us.” 

 

“You’re taking too much blame, everyone played their parts.”

 

* * *

 

_The thing was, I believed in you. I always believed in you, and I’m sorry I didn’t show it the way that I should have. Believing in you made me believe in myself. I can hear you now, telling me that it still wasn’t enough, that I still did this to us._ **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

_Could I have told you? Even without your iron suit, you still wear your skin like armor._ **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

 

 

_Once, after a party, you had been drinking and your mouth sounded like it was filled with honey and I know how bad I wanted to get closer, to hear what you were saying. ‘You’re something good left in this world Rogers.’ Do you remember saying that? I don’t think you would mean it anymore._ **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

“Bucky was always there to pick me up when I fell, it didn’t matter if it was the playground or an alleyway, he was there and I just wanted to be there for him.” 

 

“You were, he still had you in the end.” Sam is a rock, he takes a breath before he tilts his head back and finishes off his beer. 

 

“I needed picking up when I got here, even if I didn’t say it.” 

 

“You asked me if I was happy.”

 

“I wanted to know if I could be happy again.”

 

“And?”

 

“I was. I was happy. Tony had been picking me up all along.” 

 

“You should tell him.”

 

“He won't speak to me.”

 

“You don’t know that.” 

 

Steve lets out a choked out laugh, “yeah, sure. Tony Stark is full of forgiveness.” 

 

“Man, for someone who claims they cared about him so much I’m starting to wonder how well you really knew him.”

 

It bites at Steve’s skin.

 

* * *

 

_I know it’s not right, to still want to be able to say hello to you every day. I know I don’t have that right, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting it_. **[UNSENT]**

 

* * *

 

Steve’s phone goes off. 

 

His hands shake and blood rushes to his head. 

 

**Tony Stark:** _ Unfortunately I wouldn’t change anything about you.  _

 

* * *

__

It takes two weeks for Steve to get back into New York. Two weeks of planning until eventually Tony told him to get over it and that he would send a private plane to wherever he was. 

 

Eventually Steve caved, eventually he couldn’t take it anymore, and took the easy way out. If facing Tony was the easy way out. 

 

* * *

“You know I sent those messages right? I just don’t want there to be any confusion when you have your happy ending.” Sam has his eyes closed as he leans back in a leather chair on the jet. 

 

Steve can’t help but smile, “and why would you do that?”

 

Sam opens his eyes and looks at Steve. “Are you kidding me? I’m going back to being on the Stark payroll, he just bank rolled us a jet 17 hours away to come get you. That’s the life I’m talking about, no more eating canned food cold. Mimosas and private jets from here on out.” 

 

They both laugh and for the first time in months Steve’s chest feels lighter. 

 

* * *

Forgiveness isn’t easy, and it takes time to work around the sharp edges, to not get limbs caught but they make it, they make it.

 

* * *

“Don’t ever let me be angry at you like that, don’t just sit there and take it. I like it when you push back. Also, it’s ok to feel guilty, I sure as hell know what that feels like, but you can’t let it consume you because I know what that feels like too and it’s not healthy. What did you tell me once? We do this together.” And Sam was right in a way, Steve didn’t completely know Tony and he’s glad because Tony is gentler than he remembers, wiser, and his heart is so compassionate that Steve worries it might burst.

 

* * *

At night he kisses Tony’s jaw, his calloused hands, and tries to kiss away every bruise he ever laid on his skin. Remembers the red and purple bleeding, when his mind tries to push him away, wanting to cling onto Tony on his knees in the snow, voice hoarse and skin bleeding he pushes it down and kisses him harder. 

 

* * *

 

“Why did you forgive me?”

 

“Because God knows there’s plenty of times that I wanted to be for things, but I was too much of a coward to ask for it.”

 

“You’ve never been a coward.” Steve says it with such conviction that Tony looks up from what he’s doing and Steve just hopes that he believes it. 

 

* * *

“We have to let go of this, we can’t harbor this for years and throw it back in each others faces later on.” Tony doesn’t say where he’s learned this lesson from but they both know that Pepper’s name sits on his tongue. 

 

* * *

 

**Steve:** _You know that relationships don’t come with instruction manuals, right?_

 

**Tony:** _Not yet, I am currently writing one._

 

**Steve:** _I love you._

**Tony:** _I love you._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> :))))))))))) tag yourself, i'm sam on the private jet


End file.
